As much as I loathe marketing and advertising in all its forms, I must admit the folks being paid to drum up interest in the movie Hamlet 2 have done a good job — they picked one relatively small aspect of the film that was likely to really piss off the religious nuts enough to start rattling their sabers, and they highlighted that part in most of the trailers.

The “offensive bit” itself — the song Rock Me, Sexy Jesus — occupies a whopping 3 minutes of the movie’s running time, and isn’t the dirty, innuendo-laden shot across Christianity’s bow you expect given the title. In fact, within the movie, it’s more a song of praise than of insult, and I’m laughing my ass off at the folks claiming the film is blasphemous. You can immediately identify anyone who hasn’t actually seen the movie: anyone who is pissed about Rock Me, Sexy Jesus and doesn’t mention a thing about Raped in the Face is a mindless tool just parroting the criticisms s/he’s overheard from other wankers that haven’t seen the movie.

The song appears during the performance of the titular play, a sequel to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which the lead character doesn’t die, but is instead rescued by Jesus and his time machine; he then goes back in time to save everybody that would otherwise croak at the end of Hamlet. As the play’s author reckons — doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

The play is stupid. That’s the point. It’s aiming for “so stupid it’s funny” or “so bad it’s good” territory, and it hits the mark; amidst the insanity of the show itself is a strangely impressive message about forgiveness. Yes, the movie takes some jabs at the kind of people who typically protest/boycott movies like these, and bluntly, those people deserve it. When you don’t like some performance, movie, song, or writing, that’s fine; you’re even welcome to complain about it. It’s when you try to stop it being published and distributed, though, you’ve crossed the line. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head or forcing this stuff down your throat. Switch off your television (or change channels), close that book, take out the CD, and move on. Forcing your opinions or beliefs on others is crap, and always has been, and that’s why you deserve the ridicule you get.

The rest of the movie is quirky and funny throughout; the usual dull pacing most comedies acquire in their final half hour isn’t present here. I’m not entirely able to explain exactly why this is, but for Shannon and I the single funniest moment of the movie comes from an unexpected spot in the middle of the film: the protagonist has just started trying to write his new groundbreaking play, and has just suffered his first dose of writer’s block. He’s shown trying various things to shake the block, but ultimately he ends up staring at his computer. That’s when we meet his cat — it’s just calmly sitting there watching him. Then we notice he’s staring back at the cat. Finally, he looks straight at it and asks “what is your fucking problem?” in a slow, exacerbated voice. We laughed for 2 minutes straight after that, and even now as I recall the scene I’m chuckling enough that I worry I might awaken my buddy who’s asleep on the couch next to me.

The movie gives the classic lesson that, despite being taught and demonstrated over and over, never seems to be heard by the assholes that long to censor everything they hate: the more you complain about a movie, song, book, or blog, the more attention it ultimately gets and the more widely distributed it ends up. If you morons would quit whining about blasphemous movies, they wouldn’t do as well. But thanks to dipshits actually calling for a boycott of this comedy, more people ended up in the theaters to see it this week.

Technorati Tags: Humor Movies Religion

This isn’t actually a joke — the guy makes horrible films and needs to be encouraged to stop. Go sign this petition, already 250,000+ signatures strong(!), to put a stop to it before he hits us with another horrible film.

Oh, I forgot to mention: you’ll get free gum if the petition hits a million signatures.

Technorati Tags: Funny Movies Petitions Uwe Boll

Edgar Allen Poe is still one of our most beloved classic poets. The Simpsons even paid homage to his masterpiece The Raven long before the Simpsons were “cool” — the poem tells a dark, chilling story, and it touches each of us in a unique way.

The Simpsons’ take on it was funny, but still powerful. There’s just enough comedy interjected into it to keep it from being “too serious” but it’s still a haunting tale, even as Homer struts through the story as the protagonist. The damned thing still gives me chills — James Earl Jones did a magnificent job with the narration.

There have been plenty of references and homages to the poem over the years. Most of them have been at least “okay.” Then, director Ulli Lommel came along and spit out a turd called “Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven”. It’s eighty-one minutes of … well … I don’t know how to qualify it without using expletives. It truly is shit on a disc. Read the full story...

Is it a sequel? Check.
Got a huge budget? Check.
None of the principal actors from the first one? Check.
“Supporting character” promoted to “lead”? Check.

Nearly-universally nasty reviews? Check.

Did anyone really expect a comedic interpretation of the Noah’s Ark story, costing $170-ish to produce, loosely based on the premise behind Bruce Almighty, to do any differently in the theaters? The 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes gives us the answer we all knew was coming.

The original film was a quirky, clever comedy. This thing … looks quite dull, by-the-numbers, etc.

Good call, S, this thing tanked.

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
— Mark Twain, “Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar”

Read the full story...

There’s a new poll posted (it should appear below, but in case you stumble upon this post without chronological context, it’s right here. It asks a simple question:

Should movie studios and theaters warn moviegoers about subtitled movies?

There’s an amusing argument on this very topic (well, I think it’s about that topic — the “morons” I highlighted in Hold My Hand, Mommy, The World Is Scary have devolved to arguing about the merits of blogging … tit for tat I suppose) over at the official Picturehouse Forum for Pan’s Labyrinth on this very topic. Read the full story...

Now that I’ve thoroughly ranted about a couple morons who didn’t like the movie for seriously silly reasons, it’s time for me to post my own little review about the movie Pan’s Labyrinth.

I actively boycott the movie and music industries. I don’t pay for movie tickets, I don’t buy CDs or DVDs, and, for legal reasons, I will not admit that I have ever downloaded (or “pirated”) a movie, television show, or music CD. I actively encourage people not to go to movies, buy DVDs or CDs, and I actively “discourage” piracy for personal, not-for-profit use.

This movie is one that gives me cause to break that boycott. Yes, it’s that good. It’s foreign, too, which makes it all that much sweeter. Encouraging outsiders to make outstanding films like this is disruptive to the “content cartel” anyway. Read the full story...

Sigh. The posters, trailers, and of course the movie theater marquees, all say Pan’s Labyrinth is rated “R” — “restricted.” This rating generally means there’s either lots of sex (with bouncing boobies, rampant pubic hair, lots of thrusting and gyrating, and simulated oral sex) or lots of violence, or a lot of fucking bad words, or lots of violent fucking by foul-mouthed actors.

Naughty, naughty.

The marketing for the movie itself suggest that its basic story involves a young girl, dragged into post-civil war Spain, where her mother has married someone else (having lost her husband/the girl’s father). She dives into a fantasy of her own to escape the general nastiness of what’s going on around her.

So, we’ve got a movie rated “R”. We’ve got a plot that involves a war. We’ve got escapism. We’ve got a “new guy” taking over the role of “father” for a young girl.

Well damned if that doesn’t sound like a setup for a sugar-coated trot through candy land to me!

Sorry, I’ll get that sarcasm dispenser checked next week, I promise. It’s leaking these days.

It sure seems like somebody thought it was meant to be a whimsical adventure through a wacky and goofy Disneyesque world, though, because we find morons complaining about the excessive violence in the film. You, sir, are an idiot.

But wait! There’s more; read on for a more in-depth rant about this (because believe me, there’s more stupidity lurking). Spoilers are contained within, so be content with this intro if you haven’t already seen the movie. Read the full story...